Forty years after the inauguration of the Barilla plant in Castiglione delle Stiviere, in the province of Mantua, the Parma-based multinational will invest another 12.6 million euros to expand the production line dedicated to snacks and install a new line dedicated to packaging biscuits . Every year, 10 billion biscuits, over 1 billion crackers and 1.5 billion pastries of the Mulino Bianco, Pan Di Stelle, Pavesi and Gran Cereale brands are baked here.
The one in Castiglione delle Stiviere is one of the key establishments for the Barilla group’s bakery sector, with 11 production lines that give life to 103 references and a total of 105,000 tons of products baked in the space of a year. It is here that the best-selling biscuits in Italy – the Gocciole – and some of the most popular Mulino Bianco references such as the Macine, the Galletti, the Tarallucci, or the Buongrano, but also the crackers and the Michetti, were born. In the last ten years, the Castiglione delle Stiviere ovens have reduced water consumption by 18% and electricity consumption by 10%. Furthermore, investments in LED lighting and the use of electronic oven burners have led, from 2012 to today, to a 5% decrease in natural gas consumption. The plant is also equipped with cutting-edge technologies, such as the optical vision pilot system to evaluate the right shape of the products or the “sensory evaluation” which evaluates and analyzes parameters such as taste, aroma and appearance of the product, while modern infrared monitors humidity.
The new investments will serve to expand the snack production line, creating new savory baked products, and to increase the biscuit packaging capacity with the installation of a new line that produces smaller packs, in line with requests of the market.